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Mission Statement

The Crunk Feminist Collective (CFC) will create a space of support and camaraderie for hip hop generation feminists of color, queer and straight, in the academy and without, by building a rhetorical community, in which we can discuss our ideas, express our crunk feminist selves, fellowship with one another, debate and challenge one another, and support each other, as we struggle together to articulate our feminist goals, ideas, visions, and dreams in ways that are both personally and professionally beneficial.

The CFC aims to articulate a crunk feminist consciousness for women and men of color, who came of age in the Hip Hop Generation, by creating a community of scholars-activists from varied professions, who share our intellectual work in online blog communities, at conferences, through activist organizations, and in print publications and who share our commitment to nurturing and sustaining one another through progressive feminist visions. This collective is a forum where we seek to speak our own truths, and to both magnify and encourage the feminist credos that shape and inform our lives and that we use to engage and transform our world. Crunk Feminism is the animating principle of our collective work together and derives from our commitment to feminist principles and politics, and also from our unapologetic embrace of those new cultural resources, which provide or offer the potential for resistance. Crunk(ness) is our mode of resistance that finds its particular expression in the rhetorical, cultural, and intellectual practices of a contemporary generation.

Beat-driven and bass-laden, Crunk music blends Hip Hop culture and Southern Black culture in ways that are sometimes seamless, but more often dissonant. Its location as part of Southern Black culture references the South both as the location that brought many of us together and as the place where many of us still do vibrant and important intellectual and political work. The term “Crunk” was initially coined from a contraction of “crazy” or “chronic” (weed) and “drunk” and was used to describe a state of uber-intoxication, where a person is “crazy drunk,” out of their right mind, and under the influence. But where merely getting crunk signaled that you were out of your mind, a crunk feminist mode of resistance will help you get your mind right, as they say in the South. As part of a larger women-of-color feminist politic, crunkness, in its insistence on the primacy of the beat, contains a notion of movement, timing, and of meaning making through sound, that is especially productive for our work together. Percussion by definition refers to “the sound, vibration or shock caused by the striking together of two bodies.” Combining terms like Crunk and Feminism, and the cultural, gendered, and racial histories signified in each, is a percussive moment, one that signals the kind of productive dissonance that occurs as we work at the edges of disciplines, on the margins of social life, and in the vexed spaces between academic and non-academic communities. Our relationship to feminism and our world is bound up with a proclivity for the percussive, as we divorce ourselves from “correct” or hegemonic ways of being in favor of following the rhythm of our own heartbeats. In other words, what others may call audacious and crazy, we call CRUNK because we are drunk off the heady theory of feminism that proclaims that another world is possible. We resist others’ attempts to stifle our voices, acting belligerent when necessary and getting buck when we have to. Crunk feminists don’t take no mess from nobody!

43 Responses to “Mission Statement”

Our relationship to feminism and our world is bound up with a proclivity for the percussive, as we divorce ourselves from “correct” or hegemonic ways of being in favor of following the rhythm of our own heartbeats. In other words, what others may call audacious and crazy, we call CRUNK because we are drunk off the heady theory of feminism that proclaims that another world is possible.

Yes! A group of young women who are not afraid of their intelligence! Now I wonder if you all are not afraid of listening to elder sister woman wisdom? That’s the challenge with youth, no matter how they describe themselves.

This is a very interesting perspective that I have never thought about; just the name, “The Crunk Feminist Collective” got me questioning what this could possibly be about. The introduction was very concise for a blog that utilizes “crunk” to describe itself- whereas I’m used to thinking about Lil’ John going wild in a music video with a cup that reads “PIMP JUICE.” As a female I admire that the introduction focused on establishing that this blog seeks to strengthen women and their feminist ideas to help society evolve because I think females, of all races, need to learn how to think in a more feminist manner in order for them to truly utilize their minds and bodies. In my blog I want to exude the same idea of being your woman through eye opening situations.

I think I’m in love too! I’m 22, with a lot of passion and no idea where to put it. Thanks for articulating what are normally confused emotions about gender in our world and creating a safe space for all of us^^

This is one of my favorite blogs. As a young black educated feminist woman exploring my identity it is great to know that there is such a thought provoking and real blog out there for women who identify similarly. Thank you. How do I get more involved?

This 71 year old white school teacher is thrilled about discovering Crunk Feminism. I have always felt more loyalty to women than to race. Women must rise until every office that has a door to close contains 51% women in its group of decision makers. This is essential to preserve our planet, to honor our need for clean air, water and safe food. If women are sharing equal power at the top, the needs of our children will be taken more seriously and power-posturing will have to give precedence to cooperative planning. So, keep on Crunking your way into power!!

So amazing to read powerful women expressing themselves! There is a massive underrepresentation within the media, black women have a much smaller platform of expressing themselves then black men (and men in general). Keep Crunking!

[…] This also happens to other marginalised groups who try to engage with tools* of structural disempowerment (*pun intended), as the satirical Derailing For Dummies guide so brilliantly shows us. It is also perfectly articulated in commentary about US television host Melissa Harris-Perry recent glorious outburst of “eloquent rage”: […]